The Grant Park Neighborhood is a very especial neighborhood for me. Even though I live 4 minutes away from this neighborhood, Grant Park is neighborhood were a grew up. The Grant Park Neighborhood is a neighborhood that has been around since the late 1800’s and it is located 8 minutes away from Georgia State University. When I entered the community, I felt a sensation of welcome. The vintage and new homes with people sitting on their porches, people running on the side walk and running their dogs as well. As I passed more houses, I noticed several beautiful classic automobiles as well. When I was young, I would pass large amounts of time in this community and in the park as well. Recently, I would only pass by there and I would not spend any time there at all. Thanks to this project, I relieved some of my childhood memories. When I was first entering the community, I remembered the first time I that I stepped foot on this community. My father wanted to play soccer so after looking and asking around, we were able to find Grant Park. Every time that we went to this park, I would see the wide pavement roads that are found in the park and I would love to run on them as if I was a car. Returning to these wide pavement roads made me feel like a child again. The big green trees surrounding the park set a cool temperature that made me feel like a little child again.
As I was entering the park, I was greeted by its entrance which included a stone wall in the middle. The stone wall had a door-styled of shape in the middle with reddish orange tiles. When I looked closer, I notice that there were four small blue tiles at the top that made a blue square. Below the door-styled tiles was a type of construction that stuck out about 2 feet, however, this part had tiles missing. In the background, there was this curved wall that was made out of stone as well that surrounded the door-styled tiles. On the ground, there were plants planted a certain distance apart from each other and as I looked around, I noticed that there was an old paint bucket that was white; I’m guessing that the bucket is used to water the plants. Stepping back a little, I as was able to appreciate the two big trees that guarded the stone curved wall and the door-styled tiles. These two trees provide a lot of shade and people could be able to take a sit after a long walk through the park.
After taking a closer look at the stone wall and the tiles, I noticed that I was stepping on the logo of the park. Back I use to come here, this logo wasn’t present. Therefore, I took time to admire the logo and it materials that composed it. The logo was made out of stone as well with the engravings in black. The top of the logo states the name of the park, followed by a leave-less tree, the year that this community of grant Park was established, and the quote that reads, “THE PEOPLE’S PLAYGROUND”. This text offers a welcoming feeling to anyone that sets foot in this park. The quote is basically stating that anyone can come to this park to enjoy everything that is has to offer.
Next to the stone wall was this sign that states the year that the Park was founded. It also states the name of the mayor during this time and other major contributors that made it possible for the park to be founded. However, judging by the glue around it and the minimum wear of the sign, I concluded that this sign was recently placed.
The wide pavement road that is in the entrance caused a feeling that made me run like a kid. At the beginning of this pavement road, there was a crossing walkway that was made out of two colored stones. Behind the walkway, the pavement remains the same as it did when I was a kid. There are scratches on it, cracks, and broken edges.
As I kept walking on the same pavement road at the entrance of the park, I noticed this cool graffiti. As we can tell, the graffiti is the Adidas brand logo. The logo has 3 main colors: black, white, and gray. The outline of the graffiti was carefully done with a few exceptions on some corners. When it came to the fulling in of the logo, there were some corners that weren’t filled out of the way and the white paint symbolizes a shine effect on the logo.
While I made my way through the pavement road in the park, I noticed this peculiar tree. The small, tree that looks like a snake is in the middle of a field which cause it to stand out. The leaves that grow from it are long and narrow. The leaves almost touched the ground. After admiring the tree for some time, I got close to it and I started to mess with it. At first, I thought that the tree was going to be soft enough to move around. However, once I started to mess with it, I found out that the tree was really stiff and it could barely move.
Inside this beautiful park and community remains what use to be the Cyclorama. The Cyclorama is more than a century old and it remained in grant park since it’s opening in 1885. However, in 2015, the Cyclorama was permanently closed and relocated to Buckhead, Georgia. This beautiful building with four pillars in the bottom & another four pillars on top was a civil war museum. The building gave a presidential aspect with two sets of stairs; one on the left and one on the right. Above the four pillars located at the bottom, there was a silver metal frame with four golden spheres and the Georgia logo in the middle. There were four benches outside of the bottom entrance with two on each side. There were also two gardens on the sides of the main entrance with left one having some scrape paint. As I looked closer, I also noticed that the “Cyclorama” logo was gone and the only thing that was left there was the outline of the letters.
On the right side of what use to be the Cyclorama awaited Zoo Atlanta. The first thing that stuck out was the big plants that were on each side of the entrance. I am not a plant expert, but those plants appeared to be tropical plants even though I doubt it because Atlanta does not have much of a tropical weather the whole year around. After that, most of the entrance was made out of wood; the pillars, the ticket stands, the roof. The only metal things in the entrance were the gates. The colors that stuck out the most besides the big plants and their color were the big red “MAIN GATE” signs. The red and yellow combination was created I suppose to grab the people’s attention. Of course, if I looked at that, it was a must that I saw the “Zoo Atlanta” in big white letters with two animals on the sides.
When I left the park and went to the neighborhood, I felt the same peace that I felt in the park. The neighborhood is so quiet and the only things that could be heard were dogs barking, people running while talking on the phone, and the very few cars that passed by. It did not matter what direction I looked; I would always see a person smiling.
As I passed by different houses, I noticed these two homes that were in front of each other. I have never seen these style of houses before. The houses appear to be small castles made out of wood. The house on the right side of the street was dark brown with a tan outline. On the left side of the house was a tower that had 360 windows and I assumed that there is a staircase inside the home to access the tower. There was this black metal fence that surrounded the house as well. The house on the left side was significantly larger. The house on the left had a black metal fence that was placed above a stone wall which surrounded the whole house. The beautiful was painted in a lovely light brown with white finishes and roofing on the top. However, this home had a chimney next to the tower. This tower had windows on only two of its sides that would give a beautiful view to the street. Judging from its outer appearance, this home appeared to have two stories because there were several windows on the top of the house. Some of the windows were usual squared windows, but there were some oval windows as well.
Overall, the Grant Park neighborhood is a welcoming neighborhood. People here are always friendly, the environment, the community, and everything that it has to offer caused a welcoming sensation. One hour wasn’t enough to discover everything that the Grant Park neighborhood has in stored.
All of the photographs that were used in this blog post were taken by Alexis M. Buenrostro.
